A n early summer afternoon in the kitchen and the sun is beaming through the skylights. An hour to two of gentle cooking without the ticking clock of making dinner. An afternoon in which I put together savoury biscuits as fragile as frost on a windowpane, and rolls of filo pastry so thin you could see their contents of asparagus and feta hiding within.
This is cooking just for the joy of it. The biscuits are mostly cheese and butter, held together with a little flour and egg, their filling lightly beaten cream cheese and soft-leaved herbs. They can carry a little warmth, too, in the form of ground Aleppo pepper or, should you prefer, smoked paprika.
If you don’t want to sandwich them, custard-cream style, then the biscuits are good on their own, served with drinks. The asparagus is wrapped in buttered filo scattered with thyme leaves and a crumbling of feta. This time, I made them large enough to demand a knife and fork, but you could cut the spears in half and make smaller ones, more tightly rolled, to bring out before dinner.
Either way, you will need a plate or an outstretched palm, to catch the crumbs of the buttery pastry that shatters as you eat. I am not given to fiddly cooking, yet this was a summer’s afternoon of quiet pleasure. Handling the cheese biscuits carefully, spooning on a little filling, then tenderly pressing a second biscuit on top – a step apart from the quick supper that was to follow.
Cooking need not always be about getting something on the tabl.
